


The Escape and the Return

by SubtextEquals



Series: The Servant and the Duke [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adultery, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Angst, M/M, Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-12
Updated: 2013-07-12
Packaged: 2017-12-19 07:16:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/880967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SubtextEquals/pseuds/SubtextEquals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to Come Away with Me. Wanting to escape his arranged marriage, Sirius runs away with his lover, Remus, but they cannot escape the consequences of their actions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Escape and the Return

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Winter Wolfstar Wank for the prompt "Regency" (which was extended to anything involving royalty).

Remus watched as Sirius packed. His own possessions could be slung in a small pack on his back but he had offered to shoulder some of Sirius’s. Now, however, he was having second thoughts.

“We shouldn’t take too much.” He said. “They won’t be happy you’re gone. Stealing much more is—”

“It’s not stealing if it’s mine.” Sirius grumbled. “And we won’t have to carry it very far.” He dumped a bunch of jewelry (and why did Sirius have that much of it in the first place if he never wore it?) into a box and placed it in his trunk. “We’ll sell it before we get very far then make passage to… wherever it is the road takes us. Where would you like to go?”

“As long as I’m with you, I don’t care if we go to Spain.”

Sirius took a break from packing to smile at Remus. “I wouldn’t like to go there either. Have you thought about Gaul?”

Remus shifted uncomfortably. Truthfully he would prefer to remain in England but more and more he was wondering if that was possible. He was also starting to feel guilty leaving behind his friends, and without a note to Albus either though he was sure the old wizard would know what had transpired.

“I’m sorry, my love. You want to stay here, don’t you?” Sirius dropped his bags and walked over to Remus, running his hand through the other boy’s hair.

“I’ll be happy with you wherever we are. I mean it.”

\---

As it turned out, a short time of happiness was all that fate had in store for them. They got to the edge of the city by morning, pawned the jewelry and some of Sirius’s best clothes, bought horses and set off quickly. They managed to elude the Duke’s men for a few days, too.

In spite of constantly looking over their shoulders and traveling late into the night, not to mention nearly being robbed several times, they were content, excited even. They used their magic to escape, laughed about it after the fact, and went on. When they finally stopped at an inn they quickly shed their clothes and made love as though it was both the first and last day of their lives together, both a beginning and an end. They were drunk off each other’s’ happiness, drunk off their bodies, their very souls.

When either of them looked back on it later, those few days free of obligations and restrictions were the happiest of their lives. They should have known it was too good to last and both of them should have known not to run away. They knew better. They just didn’t realize the severity of the consequences, or if they had they brushed it aside.

The guards came in the middle of the night. Remus might have had time to escape, naked but free, if he hadn’t stopped to wake Sirius but he was unable to abandon him.

In the end they were forced to dress, Sirius in his fine clothes and Remus in only a pair of breeches. They were separated, of course, and Remus was beaten before he was dragged before Orion Black. Sirius was nowhere in sight and the Duke would not answer Remus’s questions after him. His only solace was that it was unlikely they did anything too severe to him. After all, he was the firstborn and Albus had said that Orion was not involved in his assassination attempt. The rest of the family though…

Remus needed to be more concerned with his own fate. For a while he was afraid he would be sent to the executioner’s block. Orion, it seemed, was still grateful that Remus had saved his son’s life. He spared him by sending him to prison indefinitely for the crime of stealing away not only the Black family riches but the scion as well.

Remus didn’t bother protesting. He knew it wouldn’t matter. And though he could have tried to escape several guards would be killed in the process. They were only doing their jobs and this was justice, after all. This was Remus’s punishment for reaching too high and living in dreams.

\---

Sirius married, eventually. He was tempted to spit on the priest’s face and run down the aisle instead of enduring the ceremony but in the end he went through with it. After all none of his protests would have done any good. He hadn’t been able to free Remus. He hadn’t been able to convince his father to be any more lenient. After that, nothing else seemed to matter.

After Remus was imprisoned he’d at first he refused to eat. Instead, locked in his room, he wasted away until his father finally had the servants force food down his mouth. Still, Sirius knew it was better than what Remus was going through. Sirius promised himself that when he came into his inheritance, when he was powerful and a Duke, he would find a way to free his former lover. If only he could send a message to him or give him some comfort until then. But he never found a way.

Another attempt was made on his life but Sirius was ready this time, with magic and with sword. He never found out who was behind the attacks. All that he could do was arm himself and hope for the best. If it weren’t for the fact that Remus’s life depended on his survival he might have let the man kill him.

Years passed. Sirius’s wife bore him a daughter, who died in infancy. Sirius buried a little more of himself away with the child but he did his duty and the second child was conceived a year later, in spite of the infrequent times he came to his wife’s bed.

He named his son John, because Remus was too obvious and too confusing as he still called out that name in his sleep. But no one remembered that John was the middle name of the servant Sirius used to call his lover and so no one whispered behind his back. The baby had dark black hair and his eyes were always changing colors, in the way that infants’ eyes did but there was always a shade of grey. He was a Black, of that there could be no doubt. Sirius couldn’t say how much that worried him.

His family had such ill luck. Though they covered it up, madness ran rampant through his family on both sides. His mother had lost her mind after losing her second son to the plague that swept through the land. Sirius himself had nearly died. In his fever he thought that Remus lay in bed beside him, that it was his gentle hands that nursed him through his illness. The servants talked about that, he knew, but couldn’t be moved to care.

Yes, madness run in his family, madness and melancholy. Sirius had the latter, that much was clear in the listless way he acted. But which would his son have?

Sirius passed his hand over his son’s head, feeling his soft hair and skin. “May you never know heartache.” He whispered.

\---

Four years after he was imprisoned Remus heard about the death of Duke Orion Black. He tried to bury the feeling of vindictive pleasure and even more to suppress the hope he felt fluttering in his chest. Because if Orion was dead then Sirius was now duke. He would remember the time they’d spent together and free Remus. But that was foolish. Years had passed and Sirius had surely moved on. Everyone around him told him so. They said that no one cared about you after you were imprisoned. They cried at first and then forgot. Wives took new lovers and, in Sirius’s case, he had surely taken a wife by now. Perhaps he was even a father.

Unable to stop thinking about it, he shed bitter tears that mingled with sweat as he worked until his muscles ached. Even that pain was preferable to the one he felt in his heart.

Days bled into weeks bled into months and no one came for him. The hope that he had felt so briefly was crushed underfoot. The love he felt for Sirius turned bitterer every day but never vanished completely. How could it when the memories of the times they shared together were all he had?

They had been so in love. It had all been too perfect. Remus should have known it would end. He should have known better to trust in a silly dream with its empty promises. That night he sobbed into his pallet. None of his fellow prisoners made any comment. He must have been too pitiful to mock.

The next day the guards broke the manacles from his hand. Remus stared for some time at the broken chains, then at the marks they left behind on his wrists. The skin was red and raw with deep indents.

He looked up at the guards, a question in his eyes and on his lips but he didn’t dare voice it.

“You’ve been pardoned.” A guard said before shoving him none too kindly toward where he had come from, toward freedom.

Remus had been outside many times since his imprisonment, all part of his punishment as they worked him to the bone, but somehow the air felt different. He could feel it filling his lungs and he closed his eyes as he took a deep breath. It stank of sweat and blood and the stench of things far less savory, all coming from the prison he’d just escaped but he’d long since become accustomed to that smell. He hardly noticed it anymore and so it took away from none of the beauty of the moment.

When he opened his eyes he froze. There before him was Sirius Black, nearly a full head taller than he remembered, standing proud and dressed immaculately. He looked every bit the duke that he was.

“Remus.”

“Sirius.”

The guards said something and pushed him forward but Remus did not register the words. He only saw Sirius beckon him and then lead him to a carriage. Remus’s legs were unsteady as he walked forward and climbed into the carriage after his former lover.

\---

Sirius gave the order to return to Grimmauld Manor. He then leaned back in his seat and surveyed Remus for a moment before handing him a plate of food that he’d brought along.

“Here.”

“You released me?” Remus asked, taking the meal. He wanted to act dignified. He didn’t want Sirius to see how hungry he was or the effect that his years in prison had taken on him. But the aroma wafting up from the small feast (in his eyes) before him was too much. He started eating as soon as the words left his mouth.

“I was able to secure your pardon.” Sirius spoke more purposefully now, took time to choose his words and Remus wondered how else the man had changed. He wondered if he wanted to know.

“It took time to convince the king. Under the circumstances, I was not allowed to pardon you myself or else I would have done it the moment my father passed.” He paused. “I’m so sorry, Remus.” And there he sounded more like the boy that Remus had known. Hesitant and vulnerable, though he pretended not to be. “None of this would have happened if—”

“I agreed.” Remus said around a mouthful of food. He quickly swallowed. “It wasn’t just your choice, Sirius. I knew the risks.” Admittedly, he should have thought about it more. What was he thinking?

He was thinking about how much he loved Sirius. How he wanted to spend the rest of his life with him without worrying about who else he was sharing his bed with. How petty. How selfish. How _stupid_.

“You forgive me?”

Remus had to take a moment to figure out the answer to that question. “Yes.” He said. “You didn’t forget about me. You got me out of that place. Of course I forgive you.”

Sirius frowned. “You thought I’d forgotten you?”

Remus stared at him for a moment, shrugged, and then went back to eating to excuse himself from needing to speak.

“I never did.” Sirius continued. “I still… I still care about you a great deal. I still…”

The carriage jolted and prevented Sirius from finishing that sentence, if he would have finished it at all. The jolt also knocked the now empty plate from Remus’s hands. Fortunately he’d just grabbed the last bit of bread from it.

Sirius kicked the plate further aside and he moved to sit next to Remus instead of across from him. Remus didn’t shift away, instead he found himself leaning closer. He also found himself setting aside the bread.

“We’ve both changed, Sirius.”

“And I’ve still thought about you ever day.” He took Remus’s hand in his own. “I don’t expect to go back to what we had but I wanted you to know that.”

“Surely you must have a wife by now.”

Sirius’s silence spoke for him.

“And children.” Remus slipped his hand free from Sirius’s and reached for his bread again, taking a bite and swallowing the unexpected ache in his heart. He knew this would happen. Why then did it still hurt?

“A son.” Sirius said quietly. “John.”

“I thought you would name him after a star.”

“I named him after you.”

Remus closed his eyes. He swallowed the last piece of bread but turned aside and did not look back at Sirius. “We can’t have what we used to.” He said softly as he stared out of the carriage window.

Sirius was quiet for some time. “You’re free now.” He said at last and his voice was hoarse. “When we return to the manor let me give you some things I owe you and you can go wherever you want.”

“I don’t want to go anywhere.” Remus whispered. “As long as I’m with you.” This time he was the one to take Sirius’s hand.

\---

It was some time before Remus went to Sirius’s bed. They both needed time to heal, to get over the past and adjust to their new lives—together, as they’d always meant to be. Remus was right; they had both changed. Sirius was prouder, more eloquent and thoughtful. Remus was silent, prone to lapses in thought as he drifted back to the prison. But at their core they were both the same.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Sirius asked as they drew nearer the bed, kissing and fumbling with each other’s clothes. “I can wait, forever if need be.”

“I love you, Sirius.” Remus mumbled against his lips. “I don’t want to wait any longer.”

And they didn’t, falling together onto the bed, quickly stripping their clothes off the other. They were different now, older, and their bodies had changed over the years but they still fit together perfectly. They still belonged and they always would.


End file.
